Recent years have seen rapid development in the area of digital camera devices, particularly digital camera devices capable of capturing 360-degree panorama digital images. Indeed, consumers now have access to a variety of low-cost, portable digital cameras that can capture spherical panorama digital images for entertainment, personal, or business purposes. For example, some digital cameras now utilize two wide-angle lenses pointed in opposite directions to capture a 360-degree panorama digital image of a user's surroundings. As a result of the proliferation of such digital cameras, digital spherical panorama images are becoming more popular and widely available.
Although existing digital cameras allow users to capture spherical panorama digital images, users still encounter problems in attempting to capture clear, high-quality panorama digital images. For example, in capturing a spherical panorama digital image, users often tilt and/or roll the digital camera. Digital cameras that are not aligned vertically when capturing spherical panorama digital images cause distortions of the captured scene relative to the axes of the panorama digital image. For example, digital panorama images frequently include slanted objects and/or wavy horizons as a result of tilt and roll when capturing the digital image.
Some conventional digital image processing systems seek to remedy such distortions by actively measuring camera attitude when capturing panorama digital images. For example, some conventional digital image processing systems utilize a gyroscope to measure the attitude of a digital camera as it captures a panorama digital image. Based on the measured camera attitude, some conventional digital processing systems correct for skew in the resulting panorama digital image.
Although such conventional image processing systems can align scenes to axes of a panorama digital image, they also have a number of shortcomings. For example, many cameras lack means for tracking camera attitude with sufficient precision to correct distortions in a spherical panorama digital image. Similarly, even for images originally captured with such attitude data, it is not uncommon for attitude data to become separated from the spherical panorama digital image. Where existing data regarding camera orientation is not available, conventional digital image processing systems are unable to correct for distortions in orientation in a spherical panorama digital image.
These and other problems exist with regard to correcting skewed spherical panorama digital images.